Regime change in Haiti

The island nation of Haiti, which is located about 140 miles from the eastern edge of Cuba in the Caribbean Sea, has been in the news since mid-February 2004. As political violence escalated in Haiti, the elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left Port-au-Prince on February 29 aboard a US-chartered airplane bound for the Central African Republic. To justify the departure of Aristide, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Peter DeShazo told the reporters, "The chaos in Haiti is obviously not the work of the US government. This was the direct result of president Aristide having armed and empowered gangs and groups of thugs."

However, Aristide later said from his exile that he had no desire to leave Haiti and he was the victim of a political kidnapping by the US military, and he blamed the US for the chaos that had erupted in Haiti after his departure. The US however denies these allegations. It is a mystery as to why Mr. George W. Bush did not support President Aristide when President Bill Clinton went out of his way to reinstate President Aristide to power in 1994. Mr. Bush claims that he is a champion of democracy and to prove his point he even ordered soldiers to Iraq a year ago in late March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, who he claims to be a despot. Mr. Bush's political philosophy clashed in Haiti. After all, President Aristide was elected democratically in Haiti.

President Aristide had to dismantle Haiti's corrupt military because he thought they would topple his government as the military had done in the recent past. But in the process, Aristide had given arms to his loyalists to maintain law and order. Some of these armed men, for whatever reasons, had joined the ex-military men who were hiding in the countryside and they finally challenged Aristide's authority. Mr. Bush should have supported Mr. Aristide in this conflict even though we knew that his policy to arm some civilians was a mistake of monumental proportion. Mr. Bush is yet to tell the world the reason he favoured Aristide's forced exit from Haitian politics.

On March 11, 2004, we learned from a Jamaican official in Kingston that the ousted Haitian president Aristide would like to visit Jamaica, which is located only 140 miles to the south of Haiti. This news does not bode well for the US-backed newly appointed government of Haiti. Mr. Aristide has a huge following in Haiti who are considered a formidable political force in the country. This recent uprising in Haiti is the work of armed militia and ex-soldiers who have no broad public support. Notwithstanding Mr. Bush's dislike for Aristide, the supporters of the deposed president will rally in Port-au-Prince and other cities. Therefore, Mr. Aristide's presence in Jamaica may cause some concern to the US and French governments who appointed Gerard Latortue, a Haitian who lives in Miami, Florida, to the position of Prime Minister of Haiti.

During the campaign for the White House this fall, Mr. Bush's opponent will surely ask him the reason for deposing Aristide. Aristide now openly says that the US army kidnapped him and put him on an airplane bound for the Central African Republic. Knowing the turbulent history of Haiti, one may predict that more is yet to come, and Mr. Bush's policy towards this impoverished nation is bound to fail. Aristide is no aristocrat and because of his humble background and popularity among slum dwellers, he is a force everyone in Haiti has to reckon with. Only time can tell whether Aristide will return to power one more time. Lest we forget, he was ousted by the military in 1990, but he returned by a popular demand. Mr. Clinton was there to help the leftist preacher to come to power in 1994.

To analyse what is happening in Haiti, one has to know the turbulent history of this island nation. Spaniards collectively named Haiti and the other nearby islands Hispaniola when Columbus first discovered them in 1492. Later, both the Spanish and French settlers controlled the eastern and western part of Hispaniola. In 1804, the islanders revolted against the French colonists and declared Haiti an independent nation. By the early twentieth century, the US had gained commercial privileges in Haiti. Because of the instability in Haiti, the US marines occupied the country from 1915 to 1934. After the troops were withdrawn from Haiti, the islanders fought with the next-door nation, the Dominican Republic.

In September 1957, after considerable unrest and several provisional presidents, a native doctor by the name François Duvalier, who was a former US employee on a medical aid project, took control of Haiti. He promised to end domination by the mulatto elite and to bring political and economic power to the black masses. Violence continued, and, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Duvalier in July 1958, he organised a gang of violent adherents -- the Tontons Macoutes -- who terrorized the population. In 1964, Duvalier, also known as "Papa Doc," was in firm control in Haiti, and had himself elected president for life. Duvalier was a quintessential dictator who turned Haiti into a police state. Before his death, he designated his 19-year-old son Jean-Claude Duvalier, who was affectionately called "Baby Doc," as his successor and made him president for life in 1971.

Things improved a bit in Haiti during the 1970s and 80s, but political freedom was nowhere close. In fact, the secret police Tontons Macoutes (estimated at 15,000 men) were let loose to torture and kill Duvalier's opponents. A popular upsurge in Haiti brought down Duvalier's despotic regime in February 1986, and the deposed ruler left Haiti with US assistance for France. Haitians saw the military take control of the nation for the next four seven years. In December 1990, a leftist Roman Catholic priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, contested in a free election and won the presidency by a landslide. Two months later in the parliamentary election, Aristide's supporters captured a majority of the seats. After barely 7 months in office, the military sacked Aristide via a coup. The Clinton Administration did not support the military coup and imposed a trade embargo. Thousands of Haitians attempted to flee their country in small boats bound for the US, but the US government insisted on returning the vast majority of the refugees to Haiti. The US, together with the UN and the Organisation of American States (OAS), sought to negotiate Aristide's return to the presidency. A peace agreement in July 1993 promised Aristide's return to power by October, but renewed military violence prevented the transition.

In 1994, President Clinton mobilised some twenty thousand American troops to Haiti to restore Aristide to power. Many Clinton haters in the Republican Party criticised this action of Bill Clinton. It was not fashionable then as it is now to do regime change in support of establishing democracy in other countries. Later, Aristide abolished the Haitian armed forces to bring stability to Haiti. However, the ex-army never did reintegrate to Haitian society. Many ex-army officers fled to the countryside and to Dominican Republic to bide their time. Aristide was fearful that the newly created police force would not be strong enough to maintain law and order in Haiti. Thus, he created an armed militias loyal to him. Members of these gangs are known as chimeres, which means a fire-breathing monster as per Haitian legend. A section of the chimeres in a countryside started calling themselves the Cannibal Army. Aristide gave the Cannibal Army rifles to protect polling places in a Presidential election in 2000 in which no opposition candidates had contested. Once Aristide was reëlected, the armed Cannibal Army moved on to new territories such as extortion, drug running, and terrorising the opposition.

In fall 2003, allegedly a supporter of Aristide killed one of the leaders of the Cannibal Army. This changed the entire scenario. The Cannibal Army instead of supporting President Aristide revolted against him and took up the name Artibonite Resistance Force. In the meantime, the members from the dark past -- death-squad leaders who just returned from Dominican Republic, joined the turncoat militiamen. The ex-military men saw the opportunity to destroy their archenemy, President Aristide, and to seize power. The nation of Haiti had other problems as well. A near famine-like condition now exists in Haiti while the economy is stagnant due to an American-led block on loans.

In the aftermath of Aristide's forced departure from Haiti, the New Yorker published an article entitled "Ten Years After" written by George Packer. Mr. Packer wrote, "Politics in Haiti is an all-or-nothing contest. Personal relationships and power determine the winners. The American intervention in 1994 seemed designed to help free Haiti from the logic of its own history. But the return to power of an elected President -- a priest who raised his voice on behalf of Haiti's legions of poor people -- simply put a mild, bespectacled face on the traditional way of running the country. Aristide always showed a tendency toward demagogy, and the poor have fared at least as badly under him as under his predecessors, who ruled on behalf of the rich. Democracy depends in part on the political culture in which it grows, and Haiti's is poisoned."

As of March 11, 2004 I read news in the Internet that in Port-au-Prince more than 1,000 supporters of ex-president Aristide demonstrated in the capital city demanding Aristide's return. The demonstrators from the slum districts of the capital were chanting, "Aristide must return" and "arrest (US ambassador) Jim Foley for kidnapping," and "Bush terrorist." Suffice it to say, violence may continue in Haiti because many of the Aristide's supporters have firearms.

By siding with armed rebels in Haiti, Mr. Bush showed his double standard for democracy. In case of Iraq, Mr. Bush opted for a regime change to bring democracy to Iraq. However, in Haiti, he did quite the opposite. Aristide may have made some mistakes by giving arms to his supporters, but that should not be the ground to punish him. After all, he was elected democratically in a fair election. As the news about Haitian debacle spreads worldwide, tales of Mr. Bush's erratic foreign policy unveil. It will be interesting to hear how Mr. Bush justifies the removal of a democratically elected president of a weak and meek nation. Sad part is, however, the immediate suffering the Haitians have to endure. Democracy should be given a chance to flourish in Haiti, a nation ruled by some despotic regimes for over half a century. Mr. Bush, in my opinion, erred a big time by facilitating the removal of Mr. Aristide from power.

Dr. A.H. Jaffor Ullah is a researcher.